Biostates GmbH is a testing and research laboratory founded in 2020, located in the beautiful Black Forest region in Germany. Biostates specialises in the microbiological analysis of environmental samples and the development of hard-and software for environmental monitoring.

During my PhD project I worked on developing new nanotechnology-based approaches for the treatment of non-healing diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs), a common and devastating complication of diabetes. The project focused on using small noncoding RNAs, such as microRNAs as therapeutics to re-wire disrupted signalling pathways in diabetic wound healing to drive wound closure. This involved using an interdisciplinary approach combining biology and microbiology - to isolate primary dermal fibroblasts from non-healing diabetic foot ulcers and understand the impact of the wound microbiome on cell growth in vitro -, bioinformatics - to determine which microRNAs were dysregulated in DFU-derived fibroblasts vs healthy fibroblasts and the biological impact of their dysregulation on impairing cellular processes important for wound healing-, nanotechnology - as a novel delivery platform to precisely manipulate the levels of microRNAs in the dermal fibroblasts in vitro - and biomaterials - which involved using bioactive wound dressings for sustained release of microRNAs in vivo.

During this time, I worked on developing and characterising bioactive wound dressings for in vivo delivery of small noncoding RNAs. This involved extensive use and programming (X-SEL) of a custom built robotic arm “dipping machine” to coat the wound dressings with various polymers and active therapeutic agents. The efficacy of these dressings were tested both in vitro in human primary skin cells, as well as in a rat wound healing model.

Selected to attend an intensive 10-day wetlab and bioinformatics course. Here, I learnt how to generate, process and analyse Next-Generation Sequencing and microarray data in R.

Summer project on the post - sonoporation analysis of HUVEC endothelial cells following an ultrasound-mediated transmembrane delivery of a model drug.